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Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Penn State, The NCAA, And Us. . . Some Thoughts. . .

Rewind one year. Put yourself back in that time and place.
Now that you’re there, think about college sports, the NCAA, Penn State
football, Joe Paterno, and the issue of child sexual abuse. Now, fast-forward 12
months to today. Who would have imagined? Who could’ve imagined? Today, we’re
forced to think more deeply (or at least we should be) to think about how the
good thing of sport that we should enjoy with playfulness has become an
ultimate thing. . . an idol even. Today, the NCAA and its leadership is seen as
either hero or goat. The Penn State football machine is breaking down. Joe Paterno has been dead for six months. . .
and was disgraced both before and after his passing. Finally. . . and this is a
good thing. . . the issue of child sexual abuse (perpetrators and victims) is
on our radar like never before. Once again, Bob Dylan was right. The times they
are a changin’.

The response to the latest developments in this ongoing
story were immediate and strong. The NCAA held their press conference yesterday
morning to announce that they had issued sanctions. . . and the sanctions were
strong. The responses to those sanctions – both positive and negative – have
been even stronger. I’ve read responses
that span the spectrum from “serves Penn State right” to “the NCAA can rot in
hell.” As a Christian, I realize that my response needs to be carefully crafted
and articulated in ways that are thoughtful, theologically-informed, and
culturally-aware.

There’s more going on here than meets the eye. None of us
will ever be able to unpack and understand it fully. Right now, we see things
dimly. But’s that’s no excuse to not think in ways that apply the Gospel to
what’s going on.

That said, here are some initial and incomplete thoughts. I
wonder if they might serve to get some discussion going. Keep in mind that the
resulting discussion among friends should serve to sharpen and hone our
understanding and response.

1. We can never forget that ideas and actions have consequences.
Jerry Sandusky carefully and deliberately built and detonated a bomb. The
aftershocks, fall-out, and shrapnel of the bombs we build spread far and wide.
My actions, my sin, my choices. . . they don’t just affect me.

2. A good friend who was a scholarship athlete at Penn State
offered me the best short summary of the mess that I’ve heard yet: “If Joe
knew, they had no excuse.”

3. The people who have spent the most time working on this
case are the people who know the most. They are also the people who have made
the decisions. This includes people from the criminal justice system, the NCAA,
the Penn State board and administration, and the Freeh Report. I think it’s
significant that at this point, none of these entities appear to have any major
disagreements or issues with the others. Does that indicate recognition of a
deep-seated and on-going problem?

4. An institution of higher education is an institution of
higher education. Education should be the tail that wags the dog.
Intercollegiate athletics is an extra-curricular activity. A university does
not exist for the sake of its football team. While Penn State has become the
“poster boy” for misplaced priorities and a culture centered on football
(again. . . idolatry even), Penn State is not alone. And while Penn State has
been forced to deal with these issues, our culture and every one of us who
lives in it should step back to see if we are putting too much stock, hope and
allegiance into sport.

5. Another friend said this: “I believe that when an institution
is corrupt or fails to protect, then the institution pays.”

6. There’s been a lot of talk about how the NCAA sanctions
are hurting the Penn State students. To be honest, I’m not sure how that’s
true. If the institution is about academics, then football sanctions don’t hurt
the students. If the institution is about football, then the sanctions do hurt
the students. . . but then the concerns of many are fully
justified. Some will say that the $60
million dollar penalties will hurt the students. We have yet to see how that
will play out.

7. Most importantly, those who are making decisions in this case must keep the
victims (known and unknown) in the forefront as decisions are made. For too
long, we have been living in a cultural that blames sexual abuse victims. Hopefully,
the tide is turning and we will now minister to sexual abuse victims.

As this saga continues to unfold, don’t just monitor the
story. Monitor your response to the story. Perhaps it will be your response
that is most eye-opening. Your response (and mine) will tell us much about
ourselves. Then, we must put what we learn about ourselves under the microscope
of God’s Word.

1 comment:

Walt, I think you're usually right on, but I think you've missed the mark here. I agree that that Penn State as a university shouldn't be about football; that shouldn't be the primary goal. But ask your scholarship athlete friend how he would have felt had he not been able to play the sport he was recruited for?Academics are great, but so are athletics, athletics teach all kinds of life lessons and are one reason that some kids even get to go to college; otherwise, they'd blow it off or not be able to make it. Neither should be held up as idols, but I believe we are to use the gifts that God has given us to full capacity and if you're talented at sports, you should compete. Taking athletics away hurts the school financially (we shouldn't care about this I agree), but it also really hurts those students that were currently enrolled to play. If this was your talent God gave you and you no longer had the primary method of using that talent to it's fullest extent, that just hurts you, the student, who had nothing to do with this whole thing.

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Who I am. . .

Walt Mueller. . . a guy who was made, messed up, and mercifully made over by His grace. . . struggling to live life to His glory in the now but not yet Kingdom of God. . . longing to enter into that glorious time when what originally was will be fully restored.

How I spend my days. . .

after several years doing youth ministry, I've spent the last 24 years studying, writing, and speaking about youth culture with a great group of folks at the Center for Parent/Youth Understanding. I've been married to my wife Lisa for over 30 years and we've been blessed with four children. . . and twin grandchildren.